Must Read Fantasy Series?

[klagett]

Just would like to see some input on series others really enjoy. Also looking to extend my nice little library.

Obviously Lord of the Rings.

My personal favorite atm The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan. Book 11 coming October 2005. Although it is becomming more of a soap opera than a fantasy series, but the first 6 books were amazing.

Somebody mentioned Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin but I have heard nothing about that.

I also really like David Eddings: The Belgariad and The Malloreon.

[Clarkmeister]

Do a search. There are a couple of long threads about this.

[klagett]

My fault

[bd8802]

Recluce Series by L. E. Modesitt Jr.
I really like the system of magic and god v evil philosophies in this series.

Dark Tower by King
I still have not read this, but I want to.

[Clarkmeister]

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My fault

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Just letting you know. There's probabaly some stuff in those threads that you'd miss even if this one took off (and it might).

[klagett]

I read two of the dark tower books if I remember correctly. I was a bit young for them and they were a little over my head.

[bd8802]

I did that with the Ender's Game. When I finally picked them up again a couple years back, I really got into them. I would suggest that series too.

[contentless]

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My personal favorite atm The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan. Book 11 coming October 2005. Although it is becomming more of a soap opera than a fantasy series,

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I am getting ready to sell my copies of this...crap. Jordan has no intention of actually finishing the series, so I've decided that I refuse to be strung along any further. I stopped at 9.

Harry Potter, mofos!

Just kidding.

[Clarkmeister]

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I stopped at 9.



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I stopped at 7 when I saw the writing on the wall. It should've been an 8 book series max.

[Pocket Trips]

I stopped after "path of Daggers" not necessarily because i didn't think it would ever end but because I had also started reading Goodkind's Sword of Truth series and the 2 were so similar that after waiting a year for the next installment of each i would forget which characters were part of which series...I just gave up on both

I would definately read " the liveship traders" series by robin hobb... amazing trilogy with a beginning, middle, and end. It was so good I was disappointed that it actually had a definitive conclusion

[Clarkmeister]

Here's the archived thread - some good stuff in here. (http://archiveserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=exchange&Number=1153006&Fo rum=f20&Words=tolkien&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&Main=1 152644&Search=true&where=bodysub&Name=&daterange=1 &newerval=3&newertype=y&olderval=&oldertype=&bodyp rev=#Post1153006)

[faith]

Raymond Feist's : Magician Apprentice; Master

Tery Brooks's: Shannara series...

my favorites growin' up... come to think of it; mabye time for a reread

[gumpzilla]

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I stopped at 7 when I saw the writing on the wall. It should've been an 8 book series max.

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Yeah, I agree with this. With 6 it was already starting to go downhill, 7 and 8 were pretty damn bad and I can barely remember anything that happened in them. 9 was more or less in the same vein, but the last 30 pages probably contained the first really big thing to happen in the story in 3 books or so.

[gvibes]

-Michael Moorcock's Elric Books
-The George RR Martin books are outstanding, although the series is unfinished.
-Steven Erickson's (I think) Malazan books are outstanding, two books in (I've read Garden of the Moon and The Deadhouse Gates). In Deadhouse Gates, the Icarium subplot and Coltaine's march are just incredible. Particularly Icarium.

I thought that the Eddings books were garbage. Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn aren't near the quality of the Tolkien/Martin books, but are still decent. Check 'em out.

Oooohhh. I almost forgot. Gene Wolfe's Long Sun and New Sun books are some of the best out there as well. Absolutely brilliantly written. I think they would technically be considered science fiction, but whatever.

[klagett]

Jordan finally announced that the 12th book will be the end. I will keep reading just to see the story finished. I've also already made a few orders already according to some of your guys suggestions.

Thanks

[Duke]

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Although it is becomming more of a soap opera than a fantasy series, but the first 6 books were amazing.

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In 1994 book 6 was seen as the bad one. If you rate them, it would be something like 9,9,9,10,9,7,4,4,3,1. TSR is obviously my favorite.

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Somebody mentioned Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin but I have heard nothing about that.

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These are all better than anything Rigney ever put together.

Martin's series is getting longer, just like Jordan's did. The good part is that the books are still amazing. When I get a soap-opera book a'la Jordan I'll give up on this guy too.

I'm not sure of a publication date (no I don't trust Amazon or the publishers) for the 4th book (A Feast for Crows), but the 5th (A Dance with Dragons) is partway complete (book 4 was a 1500+ page manuscript that had to be cut down) and the 4th will be shipping soon (it's done and all).

I think the "ever-growing series" phenomenon is to be expected, though. It's kinda why the ending to Return of the King was so sad. The Hobbits weren't just saying goodbye to Frodo and Gandalf. The viewers, writers, and filmmakers were saying goodbye to a world that they fell in love with and would never get to see again.

That's difficult for a writer. Hopefully Martin continues to weave a web that people cherish instead of fall into the trap that beset Jordan. Lucas did a better job with the Star Wars prequels than Jordan did with books 7+ in the WoT.

~D

[Duke]

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Jordan finally announced that the 12th book will be the end.

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Did he also finally announce who killed Asmodean? I have 3 theories that are all equally neat and plausible.

As for the end of the series, I also have a soft spot for the end as I hope it will be. Rand as a blind beggar missing a hand kinda walking off alone like the character at the end of Fallout is what I see coming.

~D

[sublime]

the dark tower series by king. i am jealous that you will get to read the gunslinger for the first time /images/graemlins/frown.gif

[TazQ]

Song of Ice and Fire is the best series I've read, and I've read most of them.

Game of Thrones is the first book.

Canadian Steven Erikson is a newer author who is quite good as well. The first book is called Gardens of the Moon. The first two or three books are released in the US, some of the later books will need to be bought of amazon.ca or other sites unless you want to wait for their release dates in the US.

[Matt Flynn]

i stopped paying for the books at 5 and stopped skim-reading them in bookstores at 7. one of them left with a cliffhanger of the White Tower discovering the sisters of the dark (and extremely and contrivedly limited in their ability to root them out due to jordan's misogyny), picked up at the start of the next book for a few pages and then never returned to that thread the rest of the book. what a bunch of crap. also, the storylines got too hung up on artificial reasons they couldn't act effectively and too many side stories got added so jordan wouldn't have to finish his series. a third of the threads depended on the lack of obvious communication between protagonists available in the dreamworld. just devolved into bad writing. i enjoyed 1-3 though.

Thrawn.

[contentless]

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Thrawn.

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Only semi-qualifies as fantasy though. I second this, however.

[Sifmole]

I will add my voice further to the group which feels that WoT has been dragged on far too long.

And since nobody has mentioned it yet:
David Farland -- The Runelords series ( Sum of All Men is book one)
He, of course, has some familiar elements but there is plenty of new ideas to keep you interested. The other thing I like is that he can be brief and his prose is tight, he is absolutely not "Robert Jordan".

[Number4]

George R.R. Martin is good

I also really like Tad Williams - Otherland and Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn are pretty good.

Stepehen King and The Dark Tower may be the best one of all.

Goodkind is up there as well.

Enjoy.

[Benholio]

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Somebody mentioned Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin but I have heard nothing about that.

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These are probably my favorite books ever.

Also, check out Robin Hobb (Farseer, Liveship Traders, and Tawny Man, each three books).

For some books not talked about quite as much here, I really like Guy Gavriel Kay's stuff: Tigana, Lions of Al'Rasan (sp?), etc.

[mute]

Guy Gavriel Kay is one of my favourites too.

The Fionavar Tapestry is one of the best fantasy series I have read.

Also, if they qualify, all Terry Pratchetts Discworld novels.

[SackUp]

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I did that with the Ender's Game. When I finally picked them up again a couple years back, I really got into them. I would suggest that series too.

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Ya, I'm a big fan of the Ender Series. I'm reading Shadow Puppets now and will be onto the Giant one next. Good reads. The OG is amazing.

[Skipbidder]

For a fantasy series that nobody has yet mentioned, try Stephen Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever.
The first is Lord Foul's Bane.
The main character is flawed--so much so that I now warn everyone to whom I recommend the series. Somewhere about a quarter of the way through the first book, the main character does something quite awful. Keep reading. The book (and series) are good despite (and partially because of) this. I like a story where the good guys aren't perfect.

[Blackjack]

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I did that with the Ender's Game. When I finally picked them up again a couple years back, I really got into them. I would suggest that series too.

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Ya, I'm a big fan of the Ender Series. I'm reading Shadow Puppets now and will be onto the Giant one next. Good reads. The OG is amazing.

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I just finished the one with the pequinos.

I've only read Enders Game and the Sequel and the Entire Bean series except SoTG. I did't feel like spending 30$ on the hardcover copy. Ender's game was probably my favorite book of all time.

Blackjack

[vulturesrow]

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Michael Moorcock's Elric Books

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YES! This series is what got me hooked on fantasy/sci-fi. Anyoen who is a fan of fantasy ought to pick this series up.

[vulturesrow]

[ QUOTE ]
For a fantasy series that nobody has yet mentioned, try Stephen Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever.
The first is Lord Foul's Bane.
The main character is flawed--so much so that I now warn everyone to whom I recommend the series. Somewhere about a quarter of the way through the first book, the main character does something quite awful. Keep reading. The book (and series) are good despite (and partially because of) this. I like a story where the good guys aren't perfect.

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Yeah but Covenant's obssessive dwelling upon his imperfections gets a little annoying. How many times do we have to read leper outcast unclean to get the point. Very annoying. Good series overall though.

[oreogod]

I just purchased Game of Thrones by George RR Martin. I used to like fantasy awhile ago, loved Tolkien and got through half of the Wheel of Time series.

I hope this book is good, Ive heard a lot about it.

[MLG]

for something new try the Prince of Nothing Series by R Scott Bakker. Only the first two are out, and they aren't perfect, but they are fantastic. this review (http://www.sfsite.com/02b/td146.htm) sums them up nicely.

[jakethebake]

i haven't read any of this fantasy crap since about the 7th grade, but i recall liking the chronicles of narnia and the wrinkle in time series.

[contentless]

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I just finished the one with the pequinos.

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This one became my favorite.

[Paluka]

Song of Fire and Ice by GRRM absolutely destroys everything else. It makes Wheel of Time look like Wheel of Turd.

[ethan]

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Song of Fire and Ice by GRRM absolutely destroys everything else.

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Agreed. I basically never buy anything in hardcover because I already own a huge backlog of books I haven't read, but I have the 4th one in the series preordered already. It should be interesting. Here's a link (http://www.georgerrmartin.com/done.html) to GRRM explaining what went into it - books 4 and 5 are apparently going to cover the same time period but will will focus on different subsets of the characters.

[davelin]

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Song of Fire and Ice by GRRM absolutely destroys everything else. It makes Wheel of Time look like Wheel of Turd.

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[Pocket Trips]

On a related note I guess this is a good place to ask this among my fellow fantasy reading geeks /images/graemlins/grin.gif

I am trying to find out the series name and the author of a series i started and really liked. All I can really remember about it was that the hero was a prince and the villian was named count Bellagio or something very Italian sounding was being kept alive beyond his years by a potion that would make his eyes gleam blue and at the climax of the 2nd book a toy maker had a bomb that was shaped like a castle go off at his inauguration/ crowing ceremony. I know I am not doing this book justice in describing it here but it has been 10 years or so since I read it.

i thought it was excellent and would really like to look into the sequels to it. I used to work for a book distributor and got pre-release copies of many books while working there so mny of the books i read from back then have all blended together in my mind. Any help will be greatly appreciated /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[gvibes]

[ QUOTE ]
On a related note I guess this is a good place to ask this among my fellow fantasy reading geeks /images/graemlins/grin.gif

I am trying to find out the series name and the author of a series i started and really liked. All I can really remember about it was that the hero was a prince and the villian was named count Bellagio or something very Italian sounding was being kept alive beyond his years by a potion that would make his eyes gleam blue and at the climax of the 2nd book a toy maker had a bomb that was shaped like a castle go off at his inauguration/ crowing ceremony. I know I am not doing this book justice in describing it here but it has been 10 years or so since I read it.

i thought it was excellent and would really like to look into the sequels to it. I used to work for a book distributor and got pre-release copies of many books while working there so mny of the books i read from back then have all blended together in my mind. Any help will be greatly appreciated /images/graemlins/smile.gif

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I've definitely read it, but I have no idea which one it is.

[Piers]

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I would definately read " the liveship traders" series by robin hobb... amazing trilogy with a beginning, middle, and end. It was so good I was disappointed that it actually had a definitive conclusion

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Erhmmm... Have you read her fool trilogy then?

Must admit I was slow on the uptake.

[Pocket Trips]

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I would definately read " the liveship traders" series by robin hobb... amazing trilogy with a beginning, middle, and end. It was so good I was disappointed that it actually had a definitive conclusion

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Erhmmm... Have you read her fool trilogy then?

Must admit I was slow on the uptake.

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On my "things to do list" /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Drac]

My favorite series is the Black Company by Glen Cook. I thought it was very well written and a very interesting story. The first 3 books are awesome. The next 3 or 4 or however many there were did not live up to the first 3 but were not the same stale recycled crap like the Jordan books. How the heck did anybody get past the 3rd book? It all became the same garbage over and over again. I just couldn't take it anymore.

I also really like the Martin books. Good stuff.

Kate Elliott's "Crown of Stars" series is entertaining reading.

David Drake's "Lord of the Isles" series is also good reading.